The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Time Out says

Details

What's On

Users say
(0)

Time Out says

Occupying 13 acres of Central Park, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which opened in 1880, is impressive in terms both of quality and scale. Added in 1895 by McKim, Mead and White, the neoclassical facade is daunting. However, the museum is surprisingly easy to negotiate, particularly if you come early on a weekday and avoid the crowds.

In the ground floor’s north wing sits the collection of Egyptian art and the glass-walled atrium housing the Temple of Dendur, moved en masse from its original Nile-side setting and now overlooking a reflective pool. Antiquity is also well represented in the southern wing of the ground floor by the halls housing Greek and Roman art, which reopened in 2007 after receiving an elegant makeover. Turning west brings you to the Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas collection; it was donated by Nelson Rockefeller as a memorial to his son Michael, who disappeared while visiting New Guinea in 1961. A wider-ranging bequest, the two-story Robert Lehman Wing, can be found at the western end of the floor. This eclectic collection is housed in a re-creation of his townhouse and features Bellini’s masterful Madonna and Child. Rounding out the ground-floor highlights is the American Wing on the northwest corner. Its Engelhard Court reopened in spring 2009 as part of the wing’s current revamp. Now more a sculpture court than an interior garden, it houses large-scale 19th-century works in bronze and marble—and one of its three fountains is by Tiffany.

Suggested donation $25, seniors $17, students $12, members and children under 12 free

What's On

Pick a date

to

Please select two valid dates

The first date can't be after the second date

No events found for the selected dates

Art

"Fatal Attraction: Piotr Uklański Photographs"

This Polish bad-boy artist who calls New York home specializes in works that tweak artistic conventions and taste. His best-known efforts include a Saturday Night Fever–style disco dance floor presented as a minimalist sculpture and a series of photos...

"Thomas Hart Benton's America Today Mural Rediscovered"

Benton is generally known for being the crusty anti-Modernist teacher of Jackson Pollock, so it's somewhat ironic that his epic 10-panel mural, America Today, was commissioned in 1930 by New York’s New School for Social Research for the boardroom of its...

"Warriors and Mothers: Epic Mbembe Art"

The Met brings together wood carvings created between the 17th and 19th centuries by the Mbembe people of southeastern Nigeria. These artifacts, which could sometimes measure several feet in height, were believed to have originally adorned monumental...

Ethel

The contemporary-classical crusaders in this string quartet continue their Metropolitan Museum of Art residency gigs (which are free, after you pay the institution's flexible admission). This week's sets include works by Bartók, Dohnányi and others.

Watson Adventures: Wizard School Scavenger Hunt for Harry Potter Fans

Muggles and sorcerers alike can venture on this Harry Potter museum scavenge for forest creatures and armored knights, similar to those from the J.K. Rowling book series. Kids can participate in the Junior Wizards challenge, while adults can opt for a...

"China: Through the Looking Glass"

This exhibition, which is on view in both the Met's Chinese galleries and the Anna Wintour Costume Center, takes a look at the Middle Kingdom's influence on Western fashion with displays of haute couture and art objects from China.

"Van Gogh: Irises and Roses"

Van Gogh painted two versions each of the eponymous still life subjects near the end of his stay in Provence at the asylum at Saint-Rémy. One pair of canvases resides at the Met, the other at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. They're reunited...